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| - I'm sure this place is a great hike. However, I've only been to this mountain for the Lori Piestewa Memorial Services. And that is what this review is about.
I remember what it was like when Lori Piestewa was declared a prisoner or war and how my family got calls from Hopi inlaws asking us to pray in our way for her safe return. There were many things online, in our newspapers and on tv - we were so afraid. And then the inevitable came, the news we didn't want to hear.
I don't know if any of ya'll know this, but Tuba City and the Hopi Nation are small places. Both are tight knit communities where everyone knows one another. And the devistation felt by her loss was incredible. I remember a cousin of mine recalled it as "you could hear the cries in the streets". Every Native in the country probably went to bed hungry that night in honor of her.
And as for the name Squaw. I always knew it was bad. It was something you never said, you never needed to say it. It was always something terrible. Once when I asked my grandfather what it meant he said "a terrible, terrible woman who's unfit to get married." I later learned that it meant, to his tribe, a women who was raped as a child and was deemed no longer fit to bear children. That was the interrpretation I grew up with and that is how I equate it today. I know of the mainstream meaning of that word, as a derogitory term for a vagina. But know that different tribes view it differently. but all meanings are terrible.
I've only been called a squaw once. and unfortunatly, that person knew what it meant and used it in that context. And inspite of my education, eloquence and empathy - I was nothing but a mere squaw to this person and to this state and so was it's mountian. And I gotta admit, it stung a little to hear Squaw Peak Freeway or Squaw Peak used so... lightly.
It was a wonderful day to hear Governor Napalitano decide to change the name to honor Lori Piestewa. I found it ironic and fitting. An elder once said, "Jessica may have gotten a movie, but Lori got a mountain!" And though she lost her life fighting for the freedoms of all Americans, she won a major battle in the war against using hurtful names from Indian Country's past to casually name things such as: mountains, sports teams, etc.
This little indian girl who cried when she heard that Woman Warrior died is now a young woman who does what she can to push for change in America - and a big part of what inspires me and other women of color (not just natives) was the renaming of this mountain. This Peak is more than just a place for a great hike, it's the beginning of a movement. I have never forgotten that everytime I've traveled to it's base to honor the woman who inspired the change. And I know this woman, where ever she is, smiles down knowing her daughter doesn't have to live in the same world where she once did - where Native women were constantly being cursed at when asked for directions. Where signs all over a city sliced through you like knives. Where you'd try not to whince whenever a non-native on TV spoke about the traffic. It's a wonderful world, I only wish Lori could see it.
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